The Wedding of the Century
by thefrostedrose
Summary: Post-Enchantress - Aoife and Niten's wedding: In which Scatty, Palamedes, and Shakespeare get sloshed, Joan admires everything - much to St. Germain's chagrin, Billy teaches Machiavelli how to dance, and Virginia and Marethyu play the Sergeants of sarcasm. ::Humor/Romance/Friendship::


_This came out of nowhere and if everyone is OOC then I'm sorry but this had to be written and omg feels._

* * *

"It seems weird, doesn't?" Joan says, swirling her champange. "After being gone so long, everything seems so normal."

"Well, what better way to return to the present than with a wedding?" St. Germain replies, squeezing his wife with his arm.

"Fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings, the husband's the bigger." Shakespeare says, holding his glass up for a toast. "_Twelfth Night_."

"Would this wedding make a good play, Will?" Palamedes inquired, clinking his glass against his friends.

"Yes, I should think." All four survey the hallway into the reception hall - crowded, but not uncomfortable, red and white flowers climbing up the pillars, the color scheme of the wedding. "I've never set a wedding in Scotland before." The receiving line is crawling.

"The ceremony was long." Billy yawns.

"There wasn't a dry eye in the church." Machiavelli responds dryly.

"Ugh, I know. I couldn't stop crying." Joan sighs as they shuffle a bit forward. "Will this line ever end? I didn't think they invited so many people."

"How long have you been waiting?" A voice says from behind them, and they turn to see a familiar blonde man standing behind them in a suit.

"Marethyu." The name sounds foreign and strange on Palamedes' lips, but he knows the young man in front of his doesn't go by 'Josh' anymore.

"About twenty minutes." St. Germain responds, shaking Marethyu's hand. "Where's the hook?"

"Didn't want to frighten the humans." He smirks, shaking hands and giving a hug to Joan.

"Damn. So you really are Death?" Billy asks as they shuffle more and stop.

"Can we not bring it up in front of people?" Marethyu says under his breath when a few human friends of the happy couple stare curiously.

"Sure, sure. Another time." Billy nods, looking around, before leaning in closer. "Is it true you have no heartbeat?"

"BILLY!" Machiavelli cries, yanking him away from Marethyu.

"I can see the front of the line!" Palamedes sighs in relief. "Thank God."

"We still might be waiting longer. Someone has decided to chat up the newlyweds, and she doesn't look like she'll be moving along soon." Another new voice sighs in annoyance.

"Virginia!" Billy is the first to hug her. "I hear you're a queen now. That's my girl!"

"I won't live to be a queen much longer if you suffocate me." She gasps for air in his bone crushing hug before he lets her go. She makes her rounds, giving hugs to all of her newfound friends that she had met in the world post Danu Talis.

"I didn't know you were invited." Marethyu smiles as they finally move forward.

"Scatty invited me. And besides, I haven't been back to the present yet. And Aten won't blow up anything or be overthrown while I'm gone...I think." She replies with a smile, slipping her arm into his. "So, how've things been?"

"Good. Yourself?"

"A bit quiet ever since Sophie and everyone decided to leave." She comments as they finally reach the wedding party.

"Congratulations!" Joan cries, throwing her arms around Aoife. "I cried during the whole ceremony - everything was gorgeous!"

"It was meant to be from the beginning." Palamedes smiles, shaking Niten's hand.

"Well, she couldn't say no after I saved her." Niten chuckles, giving his new wife a squeeze.

"The course of true love never did run smooth." The Bard grins shyly.

"_A Midsummer's Night Dream_." Aoife laughs. "My favorite."

"Billy!" Aoife's bridesmaid, Scatty, wraps him in a hug.

"Didn't think I'd ever see you in a dress." Billy jokes. Scatty twirls, the long, blue dress swirling around her. "You know Machiavelli, right?"

"Yes. We've had a few...encounters." Scatty nods.

"She tried to kill me." Machiavelli clarifies.

"No hard feelings?" Scatty smirks.

"None."

"Niten!" Virginia smiles, hugging the groom. "Congratulations."

"You two know each other?" Scatty wonders. The other girl nods.

"We met on a boat from California to Hong Kong in the 1840s." Virginia says, before squeezing Aoife's hand. "He talked about you _a lot_."

"So, was she a Bridezilla, or not?" Marethyu asks Scatty as Virginia speaks to the newlyweds.

"A tad." Scatty laughs. "She wanted it to be perfect. You can't blame her." Marethyu grins.

"We'll see you later, alright?" He calls as the line moves on, and he moves with the group to their assigned table. Soft classical music plays from the string quartet, and the series of balconies around the venue offer gorgeous views of the Isle of Skye.

"What do you think their first dance will be to?" Joan wonders as the group sets all of their stuff down at the table.

"How about 'How to Save a Life'?" St. Germain proposes, and his wife smacks his in the arm with a huff. "What? I thought it was funny."

"Something about a Hero. Enrique Iglesias?" Machiavelli suggests, and Palamedes laughs.

"I'm surprised you know who Enrique Iglesias is."

"I'm surprised that _both _of you know who he is." Virginia scoffs, sinking into her seat next to Marethyu.

The first dance is to some Celtic song that no one immediately recognizes, but they clap and sway and Joan gets teary-eyed anyway. As everyone takes to the dance floor, and the DJ starts to play, and the whole group groans in unison.

"I hate this song."

Except Billy.

"I love this song!" He cries.

"I don't know this song." Machiavelli says dryly.

"It's only the most annoying song of all time." Virginia huffs. "I can't believe they decided to break it out right away."

"The Electric Slide." Billy informs him. "Don't you know the dance?"

"There's a dance?" Niccolo replies, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course! Come on, I'll teach you." Billy says, grabbing his arm and dragging him to the dance floor, much to his horror, and the laughter and clapping of their friends.

"Come on, Mac!" Palamedes hollers.

"Oh god, what's he doing?" Will narrows his eyes on them in confusion as Machiavelli tries to keep up. "He's three beats off."

"God, I need a drink just watching them." Palamedes laughs, heading towards the bar.

"Me too." Will sighs, following after him.

"Francis, let's go look at the flower arrangements!" Joan says, grabbing her husband's hand and dragging him towards the boquets.

"So," Marethyu shifts on his feet. "Do you want to dance?"

"Ha. That's a good one." Virginia says sarcastically, and he laughs. `

"Would you like to make snarky comments about everything with me instead?"

"Oh, you do know your way to a girl's heart, Marethyu."

* * *

"You know, weddings always make me depressed." Will says, taking a sip of Scotch as he and Palamedes lean against the bar. "They make me miss Anne."

"I know it's rough, buddy." Palamedes replies, clapping a hand on his friends back. "But you have to pull it together."

"Pull what together?" Scatty says, joining them.

"Will. He apparently hates weddings, and he's going to drown his sorrows in Scotch." Palamedes informs her.

"Well, he better. Aoife and Niten want you to recite something or other." Scatty says, grabbing a glass of wine from the bartender.

"Oh, god." Will moans.

"You're Shakespeare, for christ's sake!" Scatty murmurs under her breath. "Surely you can come up with something."

"I need more Scotch." He says, turning back to the bar.

"Will can hold his liquor, don't worry." Palamedes grins, waving down the bartender for a bottle of Scotch.

"We might as well drink with him then. You can't find better Scotch than in Scotland, after all." Scatty smiles back.

* * *

"What on earth is this dance?" Machiavelli cries.

"It's called the Macarena. You'll get the hang of it." Billy replies, doing the dance along with the rest of the humans.

"You know, we didn't really dance at weddings back in my time." He says, making wild hand motions and trying to stay on beat with Billy.

"Well, that's lucky for you." Billy murmurs.

"What did you just say?" He snaps.

"It's just," Billy laughs. "You have no rhythm whatsoever."

"I do to have rhythm." Machiavelli huffs. "These modern songs are just unpredictable!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say." Billy smiles. "And you start with your right hand."

Machiavelli curses.

"Francis?"

"What?"

"Were you listening to anything I just said?"

"...Well, no." Joan sighs in frustration.

"I was asking your opinon on the irises. They're lovely, aren't?"

"Yes, they are." He nods. "Why are you so interested in this stuff, anyway?"

"Well, we never really had a wedding." She replies softly as they move on. "I mean, we did, but never..." She waves her hand at the venue, the decorations, the people.

"Do you want one?" The question takes her by surprise.

"No, no." She blushes a little. "I loved our wedding." St. Germain smirks.

"If you say so."

* * *

"God, who wears white and black to a wedding?" Virginia takes a sip of her champagne as she and Marethyu survey a woman across the room. "She looks like a waitress." He scoffs, and stiffles a laugh in his own glass. The song changes, and he nudges her as they lean against the wall.

"Do you want to dance?" He asks her again. Louis Armstrong begins to play, and she shrugs. He leads her onto the dance floor, and pulls her into his arms.

"You know, I usually don't dance." She whispers.

"Why not? You're not stepping on my toes. Yet." He adds, and she grins. "I haven't been to a good wedding in a while."

"Me neither." She shrugs, inching closer to him as his hand presses on the small of her back. She stares at him for awhile. "You've changed a lot."

"Have I?"

"Not in the important ways, really." Virginia replies. "But you're older. And taller. And more...worldly. Sage, I guess the word would be."

"Maybe." He smiles. "Thousands of years is a long time." There's a long pause where they sway easily with the other couples. "Do you want to take a walk on the balcony?"

"I'd love to."

* * *

"Come on, you got this." Scatty patted Will on the back.

"Just spout a sonnet and get off the stage as fast as you can." Palamedes assures him.

"If I try to run off the stage, just push me back on, okay?" The Bard says shakily as he starts towards the stage.

"I thought you said he could take his alcohol! He's a total lightweight." She whispers to Palamedes as the room falls silent when Will starts the speech Aoife and Niten asked him to. He's swaying a bit, and Scatty winces, but she supposes the audience can pass it off as nerves.

"_Let me not to the marriage of true minds_

_Admit impediments. Love is not love_

_Which alters when it alteration finds,_

_Or bends with the remover to remove:_

_O no! it is an ever-fixed mark_

_That looks on tempests and is never shaken;_

_It is the star to every wandering bark,_

_Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken._

_Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks_

_Within his bending sickle's compass come:_

_Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,_

_But bears it out even to the edge of doom._

_If this be error and upon me proved,_

_I never writ, nor no man ever loved._ Congratulations, Aoife and Niten. And may the next years of your lives be the best." Will finishes, and stumbles off stage.

"That man sure quotes a lot of Shakespeare." A man in the corner comments, and Palamedes can't contain his laughter any longer. Scatty steers Will back over to Palamedes.

"I wasn't that bad, was I?" Will says.

"No, no." Scatty assures him.

"I need more Scotch." Will pouts, walking away from him.

"Back to the bar!" Palamedes announces, and Scatty follows both of them back, indeed, to the bar.

* * *

"What's this one called?" Machiavelli groans.

"The Cupid Shuffle." Billy announces. "You just go to the left when the guy says left, right when the guy says right, kick when he says kick, and that's pretty much it." The music continues, and, when he hears 'kick', Machiavelli kicks. "Mac?"

"Yes."

"You're supposed to kick to the beat. You can't just do one karate chop kick thing and then just stand there."

"Why not?"

"Because that's not how you dance." Billy laughs.

"Don't tell me how to dance, Billy." Machiavelli sighs. "Well now what do we do?"

"We turn..." Billy says, grabbing Machiavelli's arm and slowly turning him around to the beat. "And then we do it again."

"The dances in my day weren't this...moronic." Machiavelli mumbles.

"That's why the Italian Renaissance wasn't known for it's dances."

* * *

"If we had to a pick a flavor for our wedding cake, what would you pick?" St. Germain asks.

"Vanilla." Joan says, observing the three tiered wedding cake in front of them.

"Really? Not red velvet, or chocolate?"

"No. I want - would want - to keep it simple. Classic." She nods. "What about you?"

"Chocolate peanut butter."

"Francis!"

"What? It sounds good. And it should have sparks flying out of it." He grins. "And I could perform! And set off a fireworks show, and -"

"Now are you the one who wants a wedding?" Joan smirks, squeezing his hand.

"No, no. Weddings aren't personally my scene." He assures her, and she just laughs. "But, if we were going to do favors, I would give everyone copies of my new CD."

"And what, pray tell, would this one be called?"

"Something about marriage. How about _Descent into Hell_?"

* * *

"You know, Dee and I were going to get married once." Virginia comments as they stroll along the balcony, watching the late night sun dip below the harsh hills of Skye. Marethyu laughs. "Don't laugh!"

"Did you love him?" He asks, and she shrugs.

"I mean, I guess so. Yes, I did. But things would never have worked out between us. We both have terrible tempers." She shakes her head.

"Would you ever consider getting married?" Marethyu wonders.

"I'd be a complete Bridezilla." She laughs. "There've been other men, but unfortunately, they've all been humans, so after a few years..." Her voice trails off as they reach the end of the balcony. "It seems that I have a bad habit of falling in love with someone I can't be with."

"I know the feeling." He whispers, and there's a long, slightly uncomfortable silence. They can hear the soft murmur of voices and music from inside, and she lets out a long sigh.

"But now, being Queen of an entire civilization makes the number of potential suitors quite small." She jokes, breaking the tension. "And it's rather intimidating marrying a queen."

"Oh yes, because that's much more intimidating than marrying Death." Marethyu scoffs, and she smirks, nudging him. "But you never know." She shrugs.

"You never know."

* * *

"You know, I love you guys!" Will cried, his Scotch sloshing around in the glass in his hand.

"Aw, we love you too, Will!" Scatty slings her arm around his shoulders. "And this Scotch!"

"Yeah, this Scotch is good!" Palamedes agress sillily, swaying a tad side to side. "What is this? Our second bottle? I'm going to have to bring some home with me."

"We'll have to do this again sometime." Scatty yawns.

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk." Will quotes.

"Are we drunk?" Palamedes wonders, and the three look at each other, then at the glasses in their hand, and then the empty Scotch bottles.

"Yeah." They chorus. Scatty links her arms with Palamedes and Will.

"Then let me sing you the song of my people!" Scatty cried. "_Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?_"

"_Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne_?" They sing together, earning stares from other wedding guests.

"It's not even New Year's." Palamedes laughs.

"Auld Lang Syne is appropriate for any occasion." Scatty smiles, then frowns. "Does anyone know what it actually means, auld lang syne?" Palamedes shrugs, and looks to Will.

"No idea." They all shrugs, and continue on anyway.

"_For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne! We'll take a cup of kindess yet, for auld lang syne!_"

* * *

"This'll be the last one, I promise!" Billy says.

"Oh, god." Machiavelli groans.

"It's the easiest. All you have to do is make arm movements." Billy replies, grabbing Machiavelli's arms. "First is the Y-" He bends them. "Then a M, then a C, and finally an A! YMCA!"

"I think I'm done." He says quietly.

"Come on! How could you not love the Village People?" Billy cries, following Machiavelli off the crowded dance floor and towards the corner.

"I'm a horrendous dancer." He mumbles, and Billy shakes his head.

"No, you're not. Granted, you could use help with the more modern stuff, but surely you're good at some dance."

"I can waltz." Machiavelli whispers, and Billy smiles.

"See, I don't know how to waltz. Maybe you could teach me."

"Fine." Niccolo straightens. "Put you're hand on my waist,"

Billy laughs.

"Be serious, William, and follow me." Billy immediately steps on his toes, then chuckles.

"It looks like we both need dancing lessons."

* * *

"You know, dancing is rather relaxing." Joan comments as she sways gently back and forth under the lights with her husband.

"Yes, especially with the right song. The DJ is good." St. Germain replies. Joan looks around once again, admiring the finely dressed people, the elegant table settings, and the gorgeous late night views of the Isle of Skye out the massive windows. "Joan, darling?"

"Yes?"

"Do you want to have another wedding?"

"Don't be silly." She blushes, but her husband just smiles, and raises an eyebrow. "Okay, fine. I do. I mean, for lack of a better term, we ran off without having a proper ceremony, really."

"So you want one of these big things?" St. Germain chuckles.

"Don't you?" She replies, and he lets out a sigh.

"It wouldn't be so bad - but I don't want it to be stuffy, and formal." Joan grins. "And my band must perform - and I get to set off my own firework show over Paris."

"Do you really want this, Francis?" He kisses her gently on the nose.

"I want whatever you want, darling."

* * *

"The stars here -" Virginia looks up at the dark night sky. "They're lovely."

"Not nearly as many as in your kingdom, or as bright." Marethyu responds.

"No, but they remind me of North Carolina. When I was a child - with you looking after me." She nudges him with a smile.

"You weren't that different back then, you know." He comments as she links her arm in his and they lean forward against the railing of the balcony. "Even though you nerver spoke, you're actions were always cheeky. You were quite mischievious."

"I think 'heathily curious' should be the term." She laughs. "I sometimes think that I remember you from back then, but then I think it's just my mind playing tricks on me."

"I've been careful to keep out of site." He comments.

"I don't know whether you're a guardian angel of sorts, then, or an expert stalker." He lets out a laugh, and she smirks.

"I hope more of the former, rather than the latter. I've done my best to protect you, and look after you as well as I could." There's a long silence, and she shifts closer to him with the cool wind. She turns to look at him, and finds him looking at her, too.

"Josh?" She whispers.

"Hm?"

"Just kiss me already." He grins.

And he does.

* * *

"Are you happy, my love?" Niten asks his new wife as they dance.

"Very happy. It seems everyone is having a good time." Aoife notices, glancing around the dance floor.

"All of our humani guests seem to be pleasant." Niten notes.

"And what about the immortals?" Aoife wonders. The couple notes Joan and St. Germain, who are dancing a few feet away from him. Machiavelli and Billy are shuffling around in the corner. Scathach, Palamedes, and Shakespeare are still singing at the bar. They can see Virginia and Marethyu far away on the balcony, seemingly connected by the mouth.

"Well, you can't win them all." Niten shrugs with a smile. She grins in turn.

"You can't win them all."


End file.
